What is it all for? 

This was the question that kept spinning around and around in my mind.  It was spring of 2006 and I was running late for class, trying to make out the road through sheets of Pacific Northwest rain.  I pulled into my high school parking lot just as the first period bell went off, collapsed on my steering wheel and began to weep. 

I thought this was what I wanted: a 4.0, perfect SAT scores, and eventually Harvard, Princeton or Yale.  I thought that if only I were better- smarter, prettier, more accomplished, more athletic, more popular- I would finally feel okay.  I would finally feel like I belonged.

My graduating class motto was “Finding Your Place in This World,” but honestly, I had never felt more lost or alone.  I was burnt out from years of perfectionism and so terrified of other humans that I could often hardly speak.  I felt like an alien, born into the human race by some cosmic accident.  I had no idea who I was or what I really wanted.  All I knew is that I was living a lie, and that I didn’t want this life I had built.  

But on that fateful day in the school parking lot, everything changed.  I made myself a promise:  that I would do anything, go anywhere, and pay any price to discover the truth of myself and my place in this world.  To create a beautiful, meaningful and authentic life: a life worth living.  

I left prep school shortly after and began my quest.  Mine was a long and winding road through many different schools, cities, jobs, passions, and connections.  I wanted to devour everything I could in this human experience.  I was a jack of all trades, working everywhere from costume shops to daycares to to restaurants to hospitals to corporate cubicles. I threw myself into the arts, learning to express the unspoken truths of my life through music, painting, writing, and dance.  I befriended individuals from every background, culture, and walk of life.   

Each experience brought me a different gift and taught me a different lesson. I learned to work and to support myself.  I learned to speak genuinely and to listen in return.  I learned to teach and be taught.  I learned to fight for myself and for those who cannot fight for themselves.  I learned to love and to lose: to honor the rhythms of growing and dying.  

I found friends who sought to understand my peculiar and multifaceted self and who loved me at my best and my worst.  I found mentors and teachers who truly saw me and nurtured not just my intellect, but also my passions, sensitivities, and gifts.  

Over these years, my cold and frozen world began to thaw.  Slowly, I began to feel alive.  I began to feel human.  I began to feel like I belonged.  And this is when I began to sense the faint tug of a new calling: the calling to set aside my wandering and exploring and to devote myself to a deeper purpose.  

I recognized my calling to become a therapist while working as a behavioral health technician in a psychiatric hospital.  I was mostly responsible for “one to ones” or making sure that high-risk patients did not harm themselves.  Every day, I made it my mission to find something beautiful and true in these individuals and to help them feel accepted, respected, and seen.  

One day, I overheard my colleagues venting about how frustrating and uncooperative they found the patients to be and how much they hated their work.  I found this surprising because, aside from the hospital’s red tape, I had never felt more suited to a job.  I enjoyed engaging patients in conversations, games, and art projects.  And with few exceptions, most of my patients were cooperative and respectful.  

My mentor pointed out that many people find the mental health field to be stressful and overwhelming and suggested that I may have a gift for this line of work.  That’s when I decided to return to school and study for my master’s in social work.  And the rest, as they say, is history.  I can’t imagine doing anything else.